Will of steel

I’ve been meaning to ponder intimately on the idea of ‘will’. More specifically, will in terms of the determination to persuade and confront in action in order for one to achieve whatever it is that they are engaged with. And I’m yet to ponder in such an intimate way but by far I’ve come to realise one or two about will.

Will makes things happen. It is will that keeps one alive. It is will that gives one hope (albeit sometimes hope gives birth to will). It is will that connects one between the sweat of their brow and the taste of success. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. In contrast, no will, no win.

Best then, that if one is going to have will at all, to have one of steel. The kind of will that doesn’t break easy under enormous pressure. The will of steel that can carry you after all your hope, faith and last sweat has been ashed in a furnace of life.

With that kind of will, even a goal and a dream that seem far-away from reality will see the sunlight. Will be felt by your fingertips as you lay in the reality that was once only a ‘castle-in-the-air’ as skeptics always say.

So as you will, make sure you overdose that will. Put in a bit more than you often do. Do that extra mile. Do that extra minute. Make that extra stride. And as your will holds for the next few meters, it may be the time when the wheel turns. And your will of steel safes your day.

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Limited or imagined limits?

My puppy, Tommy – a replacement of the real Tommy my parents hawked some 3 years ago whilst I was at varsity – taught me something. (Because it virtually enslaves my kids during daylight, I leash it until night falls when the girls don’t need the playground no longer). Guess what, untied and free to roam the yard, Tommy ran only as far as the leash allowed it earlier.

Basically, the poor but cute puppy imagined and in fact, felt it still was tied. Limited freedom it imagined (if dogs do) that the reality is that it can't move beyond a certain point. Beyond a certain benchmark. Past the usual point. The puppy knew, for a fact that its ability to move any further from its area of wander was impractical, fluff and air-castle. That it doesn’t matter how strong it was, it was not achievable to move beyond the normal - the area of the leash.

Driving point home: as human beings, we often limit ourselves too. We often think that we can't achieve beyond what we’re not usually used to. That the higher and more rewarding benchmark can’t be reached by us because yesterday, or history, taught us that we can’t. Like Tommy, we get used to limits, and start to perform, innately, within those limits. Anything above and beyond seems like a wish-wash. Like wooz.

The reality is that, your leash sometimes comes off. ‘Every dog has its day.’ Every star (-human being) has their moment to become a superstar, if they’re up to it. But when your day of reckoning comes, the moment when the leash/the tie is off, will you know by pushing a few steps further above the limit, or will you let pass by sitting in the comfort zone imagining that you’re limited (like poor, but furious Tommy)?

When you’re day of reckoning comes, seize the moment.

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Star Performers Inc.

Bad performers somewhat have a right, even if not so innate, to perform bad. Repecursions very little unto them since they're use to them. But star performers. Great performers. Geniuses, on the other hand, have a responsibility to keep performing at peak. They can and shouldn't mellow their performance.

It's a responsibility of a committed perform to ensure that a project started on a high note is ended/closed/delivered on a high note. Or may be even a higher note. Once you set your performance benchmark levels higher, then you better haul those sockses higher as well. Always.

It's when a star perform makes the slightest of sloppiness that the world around them notices. It's when a sloppy performer plays a bad, slumbersome note that no one even pays attention or is slightly worried. Because it is expected. In contrast, so is with the star perform: it's expected that you kick ass left right and centre all the time.

So once you start on a good note. Once you adopt a style and approach of one who delivers excellence, then excellence will always be expected of you. You should, in fact, expect, you yourself, excellence out of you all the time. Any time.

I'm going there. I'm getting there. Gimme a bit of time.

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Personal integrity revisited

Today I'm haunted by a thought which I wrote about several months ago: that if you you don't maintain personal integrity, you fail in most things. If not fail, you will experience shortfalls in your quality of life, of your goals, of you success. The quality will just short you in so many ways. But surely, as I've so often realised, with personal integrity, most things in life become less painful in the in longer run.

So if you say you're going to start a new regime at a certain time in your life and that time has arrived, change, start. Just do it. If your goals are due, make sure you will have put in the sweat of your labour and deliver on the personal promise.

That way, you have less of a haunting voice inside of you that says, "how often will you procrastinate, lazy", "why can't you made a single goal you yourself has set", "why can't you stick to that diet you swore in January you would stick to", why this, why that and many more whys and ifs. And where we cheat personal integrity, our heart of hearts always reminds us and once we remember, we become miserable as our own innerselves confront us on our habits.

Watch your personal integrity barometer. You actually only stand to benefit if you stick to it.

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I am not perfect

Of late, I learnt a hard lesson. Probably one of the few hardest ones. And I hope that it has sunken in deep so I remember it for much long.

I've learnt that although I think of myself most of the time as one who has to achieve things in only black or white, and not any other way, it doesn't always work like that. Life doesn't work like that. Life has the little cracks of grey in between the absolute black and absolute white. And it's those lines I have been missing.

I have been overlooking that I can be satisfied with achieving the best that I COULD. That it's ok that I didn't get it in the exact manner or order or colour or mass that I wished to.

Why this lesson is so important to me, why do I need to cherish it? Because my 'the-best-way or the-highway' approach sometimes hurts those close to me. Those important in my life. And even more, those that I interact with in various facets of life itself.

So my lesson learnt of recent: Nobody is perfect. I am not perfect.

But one thing for sure is that I don't have to lose mark of always aiming high. Aiming above the benchmark. For the best that can possibly be. That will always be part of me. I think now it will work best since I have come to the realisation or acceptance that none, as long as human as another average human, is perfect.

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